slumber means A very light state of sleep, almost awake. It carries an Arena rating of 1541, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, slumber ranks #309 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #1,319 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #1,502 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #2,331 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
slumber is pronounced /ˈslʌm.bə/.
Why “slumber” is a great word
A light, easily disturbed sleep, or a state of inactivity or dormancy. From Middle English slombren, slomren, a frequentative verb based on slumen ('to doze'), from Old English slūma ('slumber'), from Proto-Germanic *slūm- ('slack, loose, limp'), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lew- ('loose, limp'). Unlike sleep, which is a deeper surrender, or coma, a profound and inescapable unconsciousness, slumber is a watchful, porous rest. It is the cat with one eye open on the sill, the afternoon nap dissolving at a footstep, the suspended animation of a seed in frost—a yielding not to oblivion, but to the gentle unraveling of vigilance.
Etymology
From Middle English slombren, slomren, frequentative of Middle English slummen, slumen (“to doze”), probably from Middle English slume (“slumber”), from Old English slūma, from Proto-Germanic *slūm- (“slack, loose, limp, flabby”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lew- (“loose, limp, flabby”). Cognate with West Frisian slommerje, slûmerje (“to slumber”), Dutch sluimeren (“to slumber”), German schlummern (“to slumber, doze”), Swedish slummer (“to slumber”). By surface analysis, sloom + -er.
noun
- A very light state of sleep, almost awake.e.g.“Fast asleep? It is no matter; / Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.” — 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] B
- A very light state of sleep, almost awake.; A very heavy state of sleep.
- A state of ignorance or inaction.e.g.“Marcel Duchamp's urinal and readymades seemed in the beginning to be insider jokes or jokelike paradoxes meant to awaken people from their aesthetic slumbers.” — 2009, Ben-Ami Scharfstein, Art without borders: a philosophical exploration of art and humanity:
- The snooze button on an alarm clock.
verb
- To be in a very light state of sleep, almost awake.e.g.“He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” — 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalm 121:4:
- To be inactive or negligent.
- To lay to sleep.e.g.“slumber his conscience” — 1642, Henry Wotton, A Short View of the Life and Death of George Villers, Duke of Buckingham:
- To stun; to stupefy.e.g.“Then vp he tooke the slombred sencelesse corse.” — 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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